I.
It was in a desolate London lodging-house that Marietta's courage gave way. In Italy she could live and be merry on the most frugal fare. A little polenta, a handful of grapes, and a piece of bread sufficed for a good meal. Not so in London; nor were there grapes or polenta even if she desired nothing else. The poor little heart needed nourishment against the gloom and harass of the great dull city. So she laid her head upon her brother's breast in a fit of despair and wept bitterly.
Marietta was seventeen. She had only arrived in
England at the end of November. It was now nigh upon Christmas. Her brother Rica had lived in London over a year. He had been engaged by a great artist to sit to him as a model, and to no other.
Rica had saved every penny, being content with the bare necessities of life, so that Marietta might go and stay with him for a few months before she commenced her novitiate, prior to taking the veil at the convent where she had been educated. The nuns had adopted her when the children became orphans, and as time passed she had grown to long for the day which should make her one of the black-robed sisters of the Visitation. Unfortunately, a little time after Marietta's arrival in England, Rica's master had suddenly died, and the two children were left friendless and almost penniless in the great city.
It was Christmas Eve. The snow lay thick upon the ground. There was neither fire on the hearth nor bread in the cupboard, and the night was bitterly cold.
Rica smoothed away the dark hair from his sister's face and tried to comfort her. He could endure want and misery much better than she could. The beautiful face had become delicately spirituelle through the rigour of privation.
"Dearest Marietta, I will go and beg some food for you; don't cry any more."
"Oh, I shall die in this gloomy place! Take me back to the kind sisters!" she moaned, giving way to hysterical sobs.